Sharan Burrow
There is a great deal of sympathy amongst workers for the Occupy Wall Street movement. We understand their frustration.Collection: Sympathy
We all need to work together, because there are no jobs on a dead planet; there is no equity without rights to decent work and social protection, no social justice without a shift in governance and ambition, and, ultimately, no peace for the peoples of the world without the guarantees of sustainability.Collection: Peace
Out of the fires of desperation burn hope and solidarity.Collection: Hope
If multilateral institutions cannot bring about peace and the rule of law because of the vested interests of their members, then both national democracy and global governance will continue to be rocked by crises.Collection: Peace
Stark inequality, poverty, and unemployment are driving increased social unrest and, consequently, social and economic risk. Environmental deterioration may well intensify social inequality.Collection: Environmental
Governments that fail to provide jobs to those who are willing and able to work begin to lose their legitimacy and will face the anger of the electorate.Collection: Anger
Technological developments are changing the way we live, and there is much talk of digitalisation and the disruptive business models enabled by smart phones, tablets, computers, and the 'Internet of things.'Collection: Computers
If you think the dominant orthodoxy - shrink your economy, render workers jobless, impoverish families, and still grow - is an oxymoron... then you would be right.
As economists bandy about terms like 'recapitalization,' 'credit lines,' and 'liquidity,' families are facing brutal cuts to their social services and welfare payments, losing their homes, wondering how their kids will make their way in the world.
It's never been clearer that unrestrained market forces do not produce the kind of societies we aspire to - economically stable and socially inclusive, where citizens have access to secure jobs with the dignity of a fair wage and a welfare safety net.
We need investment in green economy infrastructure; public services, training and education; and a multilateral plan to create youth job opportunities.
Investment in jobs at a time when millions are unemployed can only be a good thing: all the better if the jobs help us shift from a high-carbon to a low-carbon economy.
Programs that reduce energy and water use and increase green agriculture and transport have huge job-creating potential.
Poor people around the world spend more on energy because they lack the capital to buy a more expensive energy-efficient product.
We all eat breakfast in the morning, we all go to sleep at night, and we all want our kids to have opportunities that we didn't.
Anyone who has lived in an area with high unemployment knows how it erodes social bonds, lowers the resilience of the unemployed and their families, and damages the prospects of the next generation.
No country can afford to lose a generation to unemployment.
Large swathes of people losing faith in democracy is a dangerous thing. Conflict, desperation, totalitarianism are the products of that loss of faith.
We need a multi-stakeholder approach to Internet governance, not vested interests in making citizens pay for formerly free services or restrictions to their capacity to share information.
If the impoverishment and community fragmentation continue, it is not a stretch to predict urban wars sparked by inequality, unemployment, and the breakdown of dialogue between leaders and citizens.
We must make both our distributional and democratic systems work for our communities.
South Carolina is a 'right to work' state - a misnomer of a phrase, as the laws limits union representation of workers. It does does not guarantee workers a job or fair wages and conditions.
T-Mobile U.S.A. is one company that uses fear and intimidation to scare workers away from union representation.
We cannot grow jobs without investment; we cannot grow economies if we don't earn.
We know how to build economies. It requires investment in jobs. The biggest medium-term multiplier is infrastructure.
Where workers are not free to change employers or leave the country without the permission of their employer, workers are, de facto, in forced labour.
A binding treaty and mandatory human rights due diligence would clean up slavery in global supply chains. Workers demand it, and consumers demand it.
We know an organised workforce cannot be enslaved, but when governments fail their citizens and allow corporations to escape the rule of law, slavery can flourish.
We may be living in a world of disposable electronics, but working people are not disposable commodities.
Global supply chains are founded on a Darwinian model that rewards employers who treat working people as less than human.
The competitive pressure to produce, buy, and sell to our global multi-national companies is so intense that contractors in supply chains are motivated to pay low wages, intensify exploitative conditions, keep workers fearful with insecure work contracts, or simply sack workers who have formed a union to fight back.
If political leaders want respect, they will begin by enforcing the global rule of law.
With global rules for global supply chains, we can end corporate greed.
Workers know first-hand how corporate capture of government is undermining their rights and freedoms as citizens.
Disproportionate corporate power over governments is giving license to the greed that denies workers even minimum living wages. It is also seemingly a license to allow the sheer brutality of treatment of working people at the base of the supply chains.
Corporate greed, corporate bullying cannot be tolerated - it's time for a global rule of law to guarantee fair trade, rights, minimum wages on which people can live with dignity, and safe and secure work.
As universal a truth as the rising and setting of the sun each day, the global economy needs people.
Democracy is rarely easy, nor swift.
Workers in Myanmar must have an effective remedy when their rights are violated.
Technology can be used to make people's lives easier, to reduce inequality, to facilitate inclusion, or to solve intractable global problems, but without dialogue and governance, it can be used against humanity - the choice on how we use technology is ours.
Work has always been influenced by technology and will continue to be.
Trade unions have stood at the front lines of struggles for democratic change and social justice throughout history. In many countries, we are the organized voice of oppositions to governments operating at the behest of corporate power and vested interests.
Many communities are already devastated by poverty. Increasingly, that poverty is born of the greed of a global trading system.
Growing inequality is exacerbated by the companies who simply treat workers as commodities, and our governments are cowered by their demands to perpetuate this model of greed.
Globalization has much potential. It could be the answer to many of the world's seemingly intractable problems. But this requires strong democratic foundations based on a political will to ensure equity and justice.
Inequality is a poison that is destroying livelihoods, stripping families of dignity, and splitting communities.
It seems evident that the IMF has learned nothing from its inequality-inducing policies during the 1980s debt crises in Latin America nor from its recession-deepening response to the East Asian crisis of the late 1990s. In both regions, the IMF has become synonymous with making bad situations worse.
For the unions, it is simple. There are no jobs on a dead planet.
Politically, we have seen the impact of social media organizing people through the Arab Spring.
Labour is not a commodity.